Everything You Need to Know About the New Chevy Volt

GM unveiled the production version of the Chevy Volt, the first extended-range electric vehicle, and lit up the Internet with opinions from car lovers and tree-huggers everywhere. Here's a quick guide to everything you need to know about the car of the not-so-distant future.

First, a quick rundown on the car's stats:

—The car will go on sale late in 2010.

—No price has been announced yet, but estimates place it in the region of $40,000.

—The car's energy comes from a large T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack running the length of the car.

—The Volt can run for up to 40 miles without gasoline. About 75 percent of Americans drive less than 40 miles a day, according to GM, so they will not need to depend on fuel.

—It will charge with a common household plug.

—If you drive beyond 40 miles, the car will run on gas and E85 ethanol.

—The car requires less energy annually than a refrigerator.

—The car will be able to reach a top speed of 100 miles per hour.

However, there are a few controversies over the car.

—-Motor Trend reports that the EPA and GM are disputing whether the car should be defined as an electric car or a hybrid. This designation determines how the car's official fuel economy numbers will be calculated. Mike Connor reports:

Reports suggest the Volt can make it through the EPA test cycle—which from 2008 includes high-speed running, air-conditioning load, and cold-start tests in addition to the city and highway cycles—with the internal-combustion engine running about 15% of the time.

The straightforward calculation gives the Volt an EPA fuel-consumption rating somewhere north of 100 mpg. But the EPA apparently wants to certify the Volt differently, insisting it finishes the test with the batteries close to full charge. That drops the calculated fuel consumption to just under 48 mpg, because the internal-combustion engine would have to be run essentially all the time to keep the batteries near full charge.

If the EPA rating of the car is not significantly higher than a regular hybrid's, consumers may not find the price of the car worth it.

—The price of the Volt was originally estimated to be around $30,000 when plans for the car were first revealed. That number has crept up steadily, to "around $35,000" in February of this year, and then recently was upped to around $40,000. The first increase was due to the cost of designing energy-efficient stereo equipment, while the second reflected the expense in manufacturing the battery. GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told the Seattle Times that the company would lose money on the first generation of the Volt. Despite this, some worry that the $40,000 price tag will turn consumers off. Others worry about the price of manufacturing the cars and what it will mean for a struggling GM; Bill Reinert, a national technology manager at Toyota, said he is on "death watch" for the Volt.

—The look of the Volt has left many car fanatics dissatisfied. When photos of the Volt were leaked last week, fans couldn't help but notice how the car looked different from the original design. Dave Burdick of the Huffington Post called it "not exactly innovative or sexy looking." Said Burdick: "The new design, unveiled this week, is rounder, as if to protect a 5-year-old from hurting himself while playing with it. It probably helps with aerodynamics, but the net result, I'm sure, will be lost when no new consumers buy it."

Edmunds Inside Line titles a story about the Volt "Electrifyingly Bland" and goes on to dub the vehicle a "huge disappointment," "completely unacceptable," and "grandma's electric vehicle." Ouch. Some commenters on car blog Jalopnik spared it no mercy, saying, "Oh Chevy, you excite me as much as getting a new fridge," while others argued, "Who cares what the hood looks like? It's what's underneath that counts." Another commenter pointed out, accurately, "While the Volt may not be beautiful to look at, it will be really expensive—so expensive that people will ignore its blandness and bitch about the price."

More from Fresh Greens:
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Blow Up Your SUV For the Environment? Yeah, Right.
Palin Changes Position on Climate Change

More from U.S. News & World Report:
Gas Prices May Revive Cities
5 Gasoline-Wasting Mistakes Most Drivers Make
A Prius That Can Power Your House?

Comments

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

I'm going to keep this simple as usual'
Green Car = Big Lie

An auto dependent society is inherently ungreen. A green society is one designed so everyone doesn't need a 2 ton vehicle to 10 miles to buy a bag of potato chips weighing 10oz.

[NL207]

There is only one thing we need to know about the Chevy Volt is (1) It is not for sale or lease --> it does not exist as a product. (2) It costs $40,000. --> I can buy a Toyota Matrix for $15,500 and enough fuel to drive around the world 10 times with some to spare. Why would I buy this turkey at that price?

[KillTheMessenger]

The question is, why does GM wants to make such a turkey? And the answer is that they need to polish their whining in Washington so they can get a $50 billion bailout.

[BClear]

Ecoprenuers Unite!

[BClear]

From an ecological standpoint,an expensive eco friendly car is better than nooption at all. The critics complain that this car doesn't have the payload of a Corolla. They don't get it, we have to change the way we live in this world today. www.blogtalkradio.com/Viveca-Gresham-LIVE

[KillTheMessenger]

"From an ecological standpoint,an expensive eco friendly car is better than nooption at all."

Actually, it isn't. You could replace four SUVs with small, cheap, efficient conventional commuter vehicles for the cost of one Volt. The return on investment in terms of energy and carbon would be several times higher than in the case where one rich person gets an EV toy for themselves.

[NL207]

And of course we need government regulations and force to insure these ignnorant people do what's best for them, don't we? The liberal solution to all problems: Tyranny.

[KillTheMessenger]

Thanks for supplying us with another straw man. They are great to generate hot air in a carbon neutral way.

[JScott]

Probably won't tow 1000 lbs. (a usual tow load for a small car) either, while a Corolla can.

[1will]

$40,000 will no doubt be too high for most that are interested in this car. Of course if gas prices continue to climb the few hundred per month most spend on fuel could be tacked onto a car payment.

[GerryP]

Backround, the Volt looks like the EV-1 with a high back so that you can get 4 people in it. EV-1 was the first GM elec car that they killed off in 1999. They had a choice do whats right for America and the planet or buy the rights to Hummer and appeal to the SUV (Suburban Uhh-salt Vechicles) crowd. Hummers were a huge profit cow the elec. car wasn't, so kill the elec. car build Hummers. Standard short sighted American business plan. In the 12 years since the first EV-1 battery tech should have been more advanced, but then again GM didn't care, so they wasted their lead in this area, but Toyota and Honda were both worried about losing market share to what they saw as a great threat. Imagine plug your car in at nite and drive the next day, no oil changes,mufflers,transmission problems,catalytic converters, tune ups. You get the idea why GM, oil companies, car parts and repair shops wanted it killed. The fact that the price is creeping up is no suprise, why shouldn't they increase it, if they know in advance the Govt. will kick back a credit to the consumer. Cheap way to boost profit with perceived value benefit. I watched Rick Waggner testify before a Congressional panel last week and it made me sick that he could sit there and talk about all that GM was doing to help America. He made me gag at the hypocrisy.

[KillTheMessenger]

This is all very nice except that it assumes that cheap and reliable batteries were available for the EV-1. They weren't. The car was a loss leader. There are very obvious engineering reasons for why Toyota chose to implement a parallel and not a series hybrid: in a parallel hybrid only a fraction of the total energy released by the engine ever goes through the batteries, thereby making them smaller, cheaper and more reliable. The basic energy storage problem has still not been solved satisfactorily. An electric car design today misses the economically hopeless only by a hair and it is not even clear on which side.

The maintenance issue is a non-starter. Nobody wants to do maintenance. If the car companies could sell you a car that they would never have to see again, they gladly would. Why? Because it minimizes the risk associated with the product. Product recalls are expensive, so are lawsuits.

As for economics: if you think that you can build a cheap electric car, go for it. Show the world that you don't just know better but that you can do better. It's not like there aren't plenty of companies trying. You could own or at least work for one of them. And who knows, maybe you are right and you can stick it to the industry and get rich at the same time?

[noneIn2008]

What is the purpose? It takes more energy to produce the electricity than directly burn the gasoline. So it creates more CO2 than burning gas directly. NIMBY

[KillTheMessenger]

Sorry to say so but that is not correct. A well designed EV has an advantage of about 2:1 in terms of carbon emissions over a well designed ICE powered car. Having said that, that advantage can be much higher if we generate our electricity with renewables and compare to a typical American muscle SUV/truck.

[noneIn2008]

Only if you include nuclear power and calculate power plant efficiencies at peak conversion, not at average outputs.

[BlackbirdHighway]

First, no it doesn't take more energy to make the electricity. In fact, oil refineries use huge amounts of electricity to make gasoline.

Second, with electricity you have choices. You can make it from coal, nuclear, natural gas, oil, wind, solar, geothermal, tides, or hydro. Most of those sources can be had right here at home.

With gasoline your only choice is which foreign country you want to send your money to: Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc. Some 700 billion dollars leaves the US every year to pay for oil. That is a terrible drain on our economy.

You can't put panels on your roof and turn sunshine into gasoline!

[noneIn2008]

A power plants on average run at 28% efficiency, very best short term peak 48%. Power line losses run about 8%. Conversion of electricity back to the battery runs about 30% efficient. Conversion of the battery back to motive force runs about 30%.
If you want to count the refining oil, one would count the transportation costs in the mining and transporting fuels to the plants.

[BlackbirdHighway]

One more thing people should know, that Congress is working on a tax incentive for buyers of cars like this one. The latest proposal is a $5,000 tax credit, effectively bringing the price back down to $35,000. Still expensive, but a little better.

Both Republican and Democratic candidates claim to favor some sort of tax credit. Voters will have to sort out for themselves whether the candidates are likely to follow through once in office.

[KillTheMessenger]

$35K is still way too steep for most people. They already complain about the price of the Prius and that is ten thousand less. It's very hard to amortize that kind of money with the very limited increase in efficiency that the Volt promises at pretty much any price for gasoline. Moreover, as discussed elsewhere, it would be environmentally better to invest the difference between a regular hybrid and the Volt in solar cells or wind energy because that gives way more carbon savings for the buck.

My feeling is that the revolution of the Volt will fall prey to the evolution of more affordable hybrids.

[NL207]

Prius base MSRP is only $22,500, not $25,000.

Even at $22,500 it is still much more than another excellent product in the Toyota portfolio, the Matrix, which can be purchased for $15,500.

[fumes]

''The first increase was due to the cost of designing energy-efficient stereo equipment,..'' why not use or copy existing energy-efficient stereo equipment? ipod?

[KenGirard]

They can't get a BOOOOOOOM you can hear a block away from a set of iPod headphones.
A big booming stereo system sucks up a lot of electric. Enough energy that the 40 mile range would have been 25 miles with the stereo cranking. And how do you get featured in music videos if your product is silent?

Me, I want a silent engine in my silent car.

[Russycle]

I'd like to see an honest highway mpg figure and skip the city/averaged figures. Honestly, if you buy one of these you should be running on battery power most of the time, otherwise what's the point? If you drive so much that you're using up the battery every day, you're better off spending a lot less and just getting a normal hybrid.

[KillTheMessenger]

"Honestly, if you buy one of these you should be running on battery power most of the time, otherwise what's the point?"

That would be rather hard in a vehicle that will have a 20 mile radius on electric drive only. The 40 miles they claim are the usual "we guarantee that you will never be able to drive more than 40 miles on one charge" number. 20 miles on average under typical conditions sounds more like it and that's the most realistic claim I have heard so far.

But 20 miles a day is rather unlikely. With 250 working days the average commuter will rake up a measly 5000 miles with that. If one can recharge the vehicle at the office, it would be 10,000, tops.
A far cry from the 15,000 miles average. So there will be some driving on gasoline.

And why not? If the engine is never used it basically means that the vehicle is carrying 500lbs of expensive engine, generator and cabling/electronics dead weight with it. And what's that good for?

The (rare) mode of transportation which requires driving the same limited distance every day is best covered by a much smaller purely electric vehicle. One of those will be able to do roughly 50 miles on one charge, plenty for most commuters. And then one can put the generator in a small trailer. That's not what the Volt is, though.

[KillTheMessenger]

A series hybrid with a measly 48mpg????

Wow... I am shocked. And not by the electricity. How can anyone make a series hybrid that's no better than the second generation parallel hybrids? It takes some serious engineering failure to get it that low. One can take a stock Prius and tune it to get 60mpg.

Honestly, I don't believe the number. The car has to come in somewhere above 60mpg and if they did a really good job at 80mpg as a pure series hybrid without counting the battery charge!

"The first increase was due to the cost of designing energy-efficient stereo equipment"

Bwhahhhaaaaahahaahhhhaaaaha... you are kidding, right? Is that what GM says? Or is it an outcrop
of the blogosphere?

Let me tell you something, people. 1 W of acoustic power when confined in a car will blow your eardrums out it's so loud. And 1W is less than it takes to illuminate the instrument panel. Even a mediocre car sound system including all electric losses and speaker efficiency will not consume more than 25W. But if you want something really loud, I suggest you ask NASA to let you stand five hundred yards from the Space Shuttle at its next launch.

"Bill Reinert, a national technology manager at Toyota, said he is on "death watch" for the Volt."

He won't have to wait for long. As soon as GM get's their $50 billion government bailout, the Volt will die "due to technical difficulties".

[jdevienne]

they added 5k to the price so the car could have stereo equipment?

[Semaj51]

At $40,000, the Volt will be out of the price range of the people who really need this type of vehicle.

[KillTheMessenger]

Nobody needs a Volt. Many people will want a Volt. But at $40k it's out of reach for most people who will want a Volt, too.

:-)

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

Plus after all the finance charges the real price will be closer to $50k.